The majority of young people in Germany declare equal opportunities to be an illusion

The promise of advancement through education has long since become stale. Despite all efforts, the school system in Germany has not succeeded in breaking the close connection between social background and educational success.

What's more, not even many young people still believe that in Germany all students have the same opportunities in principle. This was the result of a representative Forsa survey of 1018 respondents aged 14 to 21 on Education Day on December 8th.

Forsa has been monitoring young people's opinions on the chances of a good education in Germany since 2015. And never before have young people been so disillusioned with the framework conditions for good learning.

Only a third of the adolescents and young adults surveyed believe that all children in Germany have the same chances of a good education, regardless of their social and cultural background. However, a majority of 64 percent thinks that this is not the case. The older the respondents, the more pessimistic they are on this point.

The perception of equal opportunities in the German education system is thus at its lowest level since this question was first asked in 2015. A look at the National Education Report published in the summer shows how realistic the assessment is. According to this, the competence differences between children from the highest and the lowest social status already amount to a whole school year in the fourth grade.

The answers given by young people to the question of which factors, from their point of view, exert the greatest influence on a child's educational opportunities in Germany are interesting. With 96 percent, the quality of the school and the teachers comes first, ahead of the attention and support of the parents (93 percent) and the child's own motivation (90 percent).

Immediately after that comes the peer group: from the point of view of the young people surveyed, the influence of the circle of friends is even more important for educational success (82 percent) than the education of the parents (72 percent) or their cultural background (52 percent). The influence of the circle of friends has grown steadily over the years of the survey.

Accordingly, young people perceive school primarily as a social place. 83 percent state that they made many important friends there. However, 68 percent associate school primarily with stress and pressure to perform - and only 57 percent say that they have also acquired knowledge at school that can also be used outside of the classroom.

98 percent name fair grading, 97 percent a trusting relationship between students and teachers and 95 percent the provision of learning resources such as access to the Internet, computers and books as important factors for a good education. However, there is a problem with the implementation. For example, only 56 percent actually feel fairly graded.

But even if the assessment of the young people with regard to the education system is mixed - they see their own personal future mostly positively. 70 percent of young people and young adults - across all groups surveyed - believe in a good future for themselves. 23 percent are undecided, only seven percent are pessimistic.

The same applies to the assessment of one's own professional future. 32 percent view it positively, 50 percent rather positively; only a minority is more pessimistic. In view of the shortage of skilled workers, the improved market power of the younger generation should also play a role in this assessment.

And what knowledge and skills are important for your personal professional future? Here, the respondents rely primarily on classic secondary virtues such as self-organization, politeness and tolerance towards other people - 97 percent each find this important or very important. In second place: knowledge of the German language (91 percent) and foreign language skills (87 percent).

Only 54 percent consider programming and software skills to be important. And culture is considered to be dispensable: just under a third find knowledge of art, music and literature important for their professional future.

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